Theodore B. Taylor -- atomic weapons expert

Published 4:00 am, Monday, November 8, 2004

Theodore B. Taylor, a top atomic weapons scientist who underwent a change of heart and became both a foe of nuclear militarism and the hero of an acclaimed John McPhee book, is dead at 79.

The Cassandra of the age of nuclear terrorism, Mr. Taylor warned three decades ago that renegades with a chewing-gum-size piece of fissionable uranium-235 could destroy the World Trade Center. His warning appeared in McPhee's 1974 book-length profile of Mr. Taylor, "The Curve of Binding Energy. "

A graduate of the California Institute of Technology and former UC Berkeley physics graduate student, Mr. Taylor died of heart disease Oct. 28 at a nursing home in Silver Spring, Md.

"Taylor was one of the great men of our time, gifted as a scientist, as an administrator and as a human being," said the physicist-author Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., in a statement written Oct. 29.

Born in 1925 to Americans living in Mexico City, Mr. Taylor was the grandchild of missionaries. His father was a YMCA official in Mexico, while his mother held a doctorate in Mexican literature. Mr. Taylor studied at the American School in Mexico City and graduated in 1941, at age 15.

Mr. Taylor studied physics at Caltech during World War II, then served with the Navy during the Pacific phase of the war. In 1948, he married Caro Arnim. They were married for 44 years and divorced in 1992.

Although he initially lacked an advanced degree (in 1954 he received a doctorate at Cornell), Mr. Taylor's native brilliance won him a job on the atomic weapons team at Los Alamos in 1949. He became an expert on the miniaturization of atomic warheads.

The Pentagon wanted much smaller atomic bombs partly because the earliest nukes were too heavy to be efficiently delivered in large numbers to enemy targets via bombers or rockets. Super-small bombs evolved into the so-called tactical or battlefield nuclear warheads provided to U.S. troops in postwar Europe.

Mr. Taylor figured out how to build atomic weapons small enough to slip into a suitcase. Ironically, he had trouble performing certain ordinary tasks, such as parking a car.

In middle age, Mr. Taylor grew uneasy about the science of super-weaponry and began to wonder: Where will this lead? Dyson told The Chronicle that in 1960, Taylor wrote in his diary about the possibility of super-weapons made from antimatter, the so-called mirror of ordinary matter. "Had vile thoughts in the evening about how to use antimatter for wiping out populations," Mr. Taylor wrote. "Perhaps someone should write a book called, '101 Ways to Eliminate the Human Race,' and call it quits."

Mr. Taylor is survived by five children, including Katherine Robertson of Davis, and by numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.